A Cognitive Study Of English And Chinese Euphemistic Expressions

Euphemistic expression is not only a widely existing cultural phenomenon, but a linguistic phenomenon, which acts as the'lubricant'in daily communication. Its basic characteristics are indirectness and vagueness. Euphemistic expression is employed world wide in various historical times with the main aim at coordinating interpersonal relationships. The study of euphemistic expression, though attracting close attention in the literature of linguistics, is mostly restricted to lexical level and is conducted from the perspective of classification, motivation, methods of formation and pragmatic effects, i.e. within the framework of rhetoric, traditional semantics, social psychology, culture and pragmatics. Synchronically, euphemistic expression is a process of expression conflicts and generation of novel forms and diachronically it is a vital means of linguistic change. This thesis, based on the previous study and generality between languages, is an attempt to investigate the universal linguistic phenomenon from the perspective of metaphor and metonymy within the framework of cognitive linguistics. It focuses on the methods and characteristics of the generation and understanding of English and Chinese euphemistic expressions in the effort to reveal the cognitive motivation, which to some degree serves the ultimate purpose of studying the relationship between language and thought.It is argued in this thesis that the key concepts of cognitive linguistics——metaphor and metonymy, through its main function of highlighting and hiding, are able to provide satisfactory interpretation of the cognitive motivation of euphemistic expression. According to the close observation of typical euphemistic expression in both English and Chinese, it is maintained that the cognitive basis of euphemistic expression is the resemblance or contiguity between the source domain and target domain in the conceptual system. Specifically, the semantic concept in the source domain gets heightened when the resemblance is weak, and then it is mapped from psychologically highly accessible source domain to lowly accessible target domain, thus activates the target domain and makes its concept salient. Meanwhile euphemistic expression is a reference point phenomenon, that is, by providing mental conduit to the target described through metaphor and metonymy and skillfully shifting the hearer's attention, it can elegantly and successfully achieve construction of speaker's intention. The degree of euphemistic effect to a large degree depends on the hearer's encyclopedic knowledge and the intensity of cognitive scene.This study, from the perspective of cognition, can help our understanding of the semantic construction of euphemistic expression and may steer relevant study to a dynamic and open field.